Friday, 30 September 2011

Many of you aspire to own and have things all around you scattered related to cars. Say, a Ferrari pen, a Ferrai customised Laptop, a car shaped work station, a ferrari shaped bed, chairs, mobile phone, writing pad. Almost each and everything that you use in your daily life should be related or designed or customised to be a car shaped. If you are such a Car freak, the Ferrari museum is for you.

Lamborghini Super cars manufacturing facility is one of the most sacred and divine place in Italy. The facility loved by all the car lovers and a place to be for the car freaks. If you have yet not visited the Lamborghini manufacturing facility located at Italy, have a look at it below.

Suzuki recently showcased its new Swift Sports model at 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show. The car is a two door coupe with lots of additional features added which includes a double exhaust pipes at the back, new lights with fog lamps, steering mount audio control and other features.

The Indian subsidiary of the company, Maruti Suzuki is grappling with the serious labour issue at its Manesar plant. The company has recently launched the new Swift in the Indian market, and has set up a record of over 100,000 bookings of the car but the production is not upto its full capacity due to the labour issues at the plant.

Skoda has officially launched the first ever Video of its Mission L sedan in India. The sedan was codenamed at SK251 which is the codename to be used during the production phase of the sedan. SK251 shares the platform with Volkswagen Vento which was codenamed VW251 when the car was at its production phase. Volkswagen and Skoda though belonging to the same family decided to go separately for the Indian market. This would enhance the competition for the present carmakers and hence would increase the overall share of Vw/Skoda family.

The sedan, earlier codenamed SK251 was then rumoured to be named as Rapid for the Indian market. The company finally came with the name "Lauretta" for the Indian market, we think the name was again collaborately though upon by the two carmakers, as we think the name was derived from Laura+Jetta = Lauretta. Recently, the company has also stated that the name of the sedan will be disclosed during its launch on 07th October. Now this came as a surpiring news to all of us. Well, we again think this could be the marketing strategy of Skoda India cars so as to grab the attention of maximum carmakes and other masses across India. The show will now surely grab attention across the states, as the pricing of the sedan along with latest features would play a major role in making the sedan a success in the Indian market.

For rest of the details, we will take you Live to the event on the day of Launch. Till then enjoy watching the First ever official Video of Mission L concept. Mind you this is the Teaser video by Skoda, they have yet not unveiled the interior details of the car. We are in catch of some of its top officials, let us find how soon can we get those to you.

The company, which opened its ninth exclusive showroom in the country and the first in Kerala today, is hopeful of selling 25-30 superbikes in the state this year, Hyder Ali Khan, the Chief Operating Officer of Garware Motors said.

Two bikes -- the Hyosung GT650R, a 650-cc sports bike priced at Rs 4.75 lakh in a single-tone colour and Rs 4.90 lakh in a dual colour (both ex-showroom), and Hyosung ST-7, a 700-cc cruiser with a price tag of Rs 5.69 lakh (ex-showroom) -- were launched in the state.

With Arjun Rampal being the Brand Ambassador of Hyosung Garware Motorbikes in India, the company aims to be numero uno in Motorbike Sales.

Launched five months ago in Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolhapur and Chandigarh, there has been a good response for the bikes and 250 bikes have been sold so far across the country, Khan said.

The company now has 12 showrooms across India. Garware Motors also plans to launch a 250-cc bike priced between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 2.5 lakh by March next year, which is aimed at generating sales volumes.

Garware Motors has recently opened a manufacturing capacity in Wai, Maharastra to manufacture 8-10 Superbikes in a day. Garware Motors will launch the GT650 N -- the 'Naked' version of the GT650R -- next month, he said.

Though it’s been in the rumor mill for quite sometime now, Maserati has finally unveiled the Kubang, a concept SUV that may be a pre-cursor to what the Italian manufacturer’s first Sport Utility will look like. The Kubang has been launched a few days ago during the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2011 and was designed by Lorenzo Ramaciotti and is developed in collaboration with the Jeep from which it takes the platform of the new Grand Cherokee.

The car mount probably already known naturally aspirated V8 engine derived from Ferrari and will be paired with a 3.0 liter V6 version by a turbodiesel engine that was used on the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Lancia Thema.

Hyundai Eon is finally on its way now. The company has finally announced the launch date, 13th October but the company says, the bookings for the car will open 01st October onwards. Hyundai is as eager to launch the car as you are eager to see the car. This is the once again the beginning of 800cc era in the automobile market. Big bets on this one from our side.

Hyundai Eon with a 814cc engine is finally being spied. Yesterday Anything-on-wheels posted the images of Hyundai Eon – inside out, this might be the Sportz variant of the hatchback as we are used to seeing it in i10 and i20 hatchbacks.

The car is loaded with features and hence we expect this one to be the top variant. The dual tone interiors was a charm to watch out for. The shade placed above the AC vents is seen in top notch cars like Hyundai Verna and Ford Fiesta. Also, equipped with a MP3/USB/CD player, this will surely give a tough time to Maruti Suzuki Alto. Hyundai provides good quality stereo systems on i10 and i20 models of the car and hence we expect this one to be in line with the other variants of the carmaker.

The rear profile is highlighted by the knife-edge tail lights and a semi-circular windshield. The tailgate as seen from the images is compact which gives us a hint that the car might be small with its boot space. Hyundai has also provided little curves in the car as we see in i10 and i20, which seems to be a good thing, as this makes the car look sporty.

There’s only one thing that comes to our mind. Hyundai might gain heaps of volumes from this small car. Big bets on this one from our side. What’s your view?

Mahindra & Mahindra have recently launched their XUV5oo in the market with advanced features and at a very competitive price. The company has already started the production of its SUV at its Chakan plant in Pune.

The images from the Chakan factory which showcases the skill set of the company with which the company manufactures the SUV. Ofcourse, while competing with the premium segment SUV’s like Toyota Fortuner, Mitsubishi Outlander, Honda CRV and GM’s Captiva, Mahindra has showcased that it has the potential to build world class vehicles at a global level.

The SUV has recently been launched in India at a price level of 10.8 Lac(ex-showroom price) on 28th September, the following day XUV5oo was also launched in South Africa. Mr. Anand Mahindra says he has plans to launch the SUV in European countries as well.

As of now, the SUV will be manufactured in India and will be exported to South Africa but Mr. Mahindra says we have world class facility in South Africa and soon the SUV will get its manufacturing done at South Africa once we pick up volumes in Africa.

The images show TCF, which showcases Trim, Chassis & Frame manufacturing capability of Mahindra at its Chakan plant.

MSI today announced opening of its 1,000th sales showroom for its products in Surat, Gujarat, as a part of the strategy to expand into tier-II and tier-III cities across the country. This forms a part of Maruti’s strategy to double its Sales Network in India by 2015. The count of Maruti’s Sales Office will take to 2,000 if everything goes as per the plan by 2015.

This strategy is an initiative being taken up by Maruti under name “Nav Nirman”. "The objective of 'Nav

Nirman' is to provide customers uniform buying experience across the country," it added.

"Network expansion is strategic to our business and we would continue to focus on it. We target to double our sales network in next five years, in line with the company's sales plan," MSI Managing Director and CEOShinzo Nakanishisaid in a statement

.

Meanwhile, the company is grappling hard with the Maruti Suzuki India’s strike at its Manesar plant. The company has though taken a lot of efforts in building up the lost sales and is hiring new workers constantly on a regular basis. The count of employees has reached to 1,500 employees of which 1,120 have been recently added up after the strike which initiated 29th of August.

Maruti now has ramped up the production of its newly launched Swift to 700 vehicles a day against its full capacity of 1,500 vehicles a day.

Auto parts maker Bosch Ltd said on Friday an union and workers of its plant in Bangalore have gone on a "tool down" strike from Sept 28, prompting the company to shut down operations from Thursday.

The MICO Employee's Association went on the strike from Wednesday beginning with the first shift of production. Bosch Limited is the flagship company of Bosch in India and has sales of around Rs 7,000 crore and is a major supplier to almost all automotive companies in India. The Bangalore unit of Bosch India Limited employs around 2,500 employees.

According to a statement from Bosch India, the employees' union of Bosch Limited — MEA (MICO Employee’s Association) declared a ‘Tool Down’ strike at the Bosch Bangalore Plant on September 28, 2011, beginning with the first shift of production. The company has termed the strike illegal. The loss per day due to the strike is around Rs 5 crore a day.

This is the second disturbance for Bosch Ltd within six months. In March this year, production was affected at the plant for a couple of days over the demand for a wage increase, an issue which was settled amicably after Labour Commissioner intervened. In March 2010, around 4,000 employees of Bosch went on strike for a protracted period over demands for higher wages and medical support and the company is estimated to have lost nearly Rs 1,000 crore.

The management had initially planned to redeploy 140 workers, but eventually scaled it down to 40. The management says the issue was discussed with the union previously . "The outsourcing initiative has not resulted in any job loss whatsoever and is a common practice resorted to by Bosch Ltd and the industry as part of modernization to maintain a competitive edge and secure the future," said a company statement.

Thursday, 29 September 2011

"Our customers have been demanding the Chrome model of Royal Enfield for quite some time now. Both Classic Chrome andDesert Stormare meant to bring more thrills to the customer," the firm's senior vice president (sales and marketing) Shaji Koshy said.

CLASSIC CHROME

Price: Rs 164,400

Specifications: 500cc twin-spark engine, with 27.2 bhp power output.

DESERT STORM

Price: Rs 158,200

Specifications: 500cc twin-spark engine

"Following the launch of Classic 350 and 500cc in September 2009, we have been continuously equipping our dealerships to take customer satisfaction to the next level. In 2011, we have added 15 dealerships and one brand store to our existing network," Koshy said.

Royal Enfield has already started work on a new plant, which will also come up near Chennai, said Venki Padmanabhan, the company’s CEO.

"The plant will be ready for full production by the first quarter of 2013. Our production capacity will then go up to 1.5 lakh units per year from the current 70,000," Padmanabhan said.

Out of the 70,000 motorcycles it hopes to produce this year, Royal Enfield will export around 3,000 units. UK, Germany, Italy, USA, Canada and Japan are among its export markets. The company currently exports to 30 countries and plans to tap ten more countries by December, while it has 180 dealers in India presently.

Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India(HMSI), Honda's wholly-owned two-wheeler production and sales subsidiary in India, today laid the foundation stone for its third two-wheeler production plant in the country at Narsapur, in Karnataka.

Honda Motorcycle has a factory in Manesar in northern India's Haryana state and a second in Tapukara in the northwestern state of Rajasthan. The combined capacity of the two plants is 2.2 million units a year, which will be raised to 2.8 million units by March next year.

The company plans to hire 3,000 people at this plant. It is planned to begin producing vehicles in the first half of 2013, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India P Ltd said on Thursday.

This capacity expansion plan will increase HMSI’s total annual production capacity to 4 million units, including 1.6 million units at the first plant at Manesar (Haryana), 1.2 million units at the second plant at Tapukara (Rajasthan) and 1.2 million units at the third plant planned at Bengaluru, preparing HMSI for further and rapid growth of the market.

In an effort to improve overseas sales, automobilemajorMahindra & MahindraThursday said it will launch its premiumsports utility vehicle(SUV) -XUV500- in South Africa Friday, just a day after introducing the car in India. No price details have been divulged for African market.

“XUV500 would be lunched in Johannesburg, South Africa tomorrow and within the next six months would be launched globally in South America, Australia and SAARC countries," Pravin Shah, chief executive, (international operations) automotive and farm sectors at Mahindra & Mahindra said.

“The car would be manufactured here and then shipped to South Africa. But we also have fully-owned operations in South Africa, which can also manufacture the product. The operations can supply the SUV to neighbouring countries such as Botswana, Zimbabwe and Swaziland," Shah said.

Cash strapped Swedish car maker Saab confirmed the earlier media reports that it has sold the high end luxury sports car brand, Spyker to US based Private Equity firm North Street Capital for 32 million euros.

Saab confirmed that the cash would be used to repay the debt of the company.

Earlier in February, the company said it is planning to sell the Luxury car brand to CPP Global Holdings, the UK holding company of Russian businessman Vladimir Antonov, saying that the deal could raise upto 32 million euros, but then by August the company said that the deal has been put on hold.

Spyker's sports cars have appeared in Hollywood films including The Pink Panther and Basic Instinct 2. Only a few dozen are produced each year, with a list price of about 200,000 euros for the C8 Aileron.

The official Video of the Formula 1 track at Buddh International Circuit is out. The Video will take you through the full length track. You will feel like driving a Formula 1 car on an actual track.

Many Video games have also been launched based on the Formula 1 event which is scheduled in India on 30th October 2011. The two test races will be held on 28th and 29th October and the main grand event is scheduled on 30th October 2011 at 15:00 hrs.

Mahindra’s have finally disclosed the pricing of its newly launched XUV5OO. Let me tell you the SUV is launched at an amazing price tag starting from Rs 10.8 Lac. The various variants with their prices are as below

XUV5OO W6 – Rs 10.8 Lac

XUV5OO W8 (4X2) – Rs 11.95 Lac

XUV5OO W8 (4X4) – Rs 12.88 Lac

For seeing the image of the real car, you don’t need to google out, just click the link here and unveil the car yourself. Yes! Drop down the cars yourself and feel like you are the first one to open the car out in front of everybody at stage. Just click here to unveil XUV500 yourself.

Developed by team of 200 engineers, the car is leaps and bounds ahead of older Mahindras and is the most expensive offering by the company so far. The SUV took 4 years to develop. More than simply a new launch, the XUV500 is the most significant new product for the company since the Scorpio was launched a decade back.

Developed by team of 200 engineers, the car is leaps and bounds ahead of older Mahindras and is the most expensive offering by the company so far. The SUV took 4 years to develop. More than simply a new launch, the XUV500 is the most significant new product for the company since the Scorpio was launched a decade back.

French Carmaker Renault India has chalked out the plans for its marketing during the Mega event to be held at Jaypee Sports Academy, Noida. Renault India has lined up Rs 6.5 Crore budget to promote the company during the event starting from 28th October to 30th October 2011.

"We have a lot of events around the F1 GP. Apart from the engines on the cars, we will display an F1 car, hold events at malls using race simulators so that winners get invites to the GP," said Len Curran, vice-president, sales and marketing,Renault India. He added that the company had prepared campaigns withYahooand animation at its showrooms, where tickets can be won. The company's chairman, Carlos Ghosn, will unveil during the event the concept version of its hatchback that it plans to launch in the country in the first quarter of 2012.

Curran was in Pune for the unveiling of the Koleos sports utility vehicle. Renault, which has announced a five-car roll out by December 2012, will bring in the mini SUV, the Duster, by the first half of next year. "This will be a heavily Indianized car, not like the Dacia Duster that you see in Europe," Curran said.

The 13th annual event, Maruti Suzuki Raid-de-Himalaya will flag off from Shimla to Srinagar from 13th October to 16th October and will see the participants across the country with huge adrenaline rush and desire to showcase the power and their driving skills.

For the first time, the company has worked out two separate routes to enhance participation and engagement of the mighty Himalayan range with motorsports enthusiasts. This is in line with the expectations of motorsports enthusiasts especially amateurs, who for many years have been looking for such exciting opportunities.

In its revamped format, the X-treme and Adventure categories would have their own paths initially before meeting at Rangdum, situated 11,998 feet above sea level in an isolated region of the Suru valley in the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir, and continue together via Penzi-La till the final stop at Srinagar, the release added.

Teams from Tata Motors, Mahindra and Maruti are all set to battle out the most predominant adventure class. A paraplegic competitor, Anurag Bareja from Gurgaon, would be competing for the first time in this year's Raid. His participation will be at par with other competitors in a modified hand-controlled car, said Parmar.

Giving details about the itinerary, he said that the first leg for the X-treme category would traverse through Shimla, Mandi and Kullu with a night stopover at Manali. The second leg would cross over the mighty Rohtang with a long drive added to halt at Leh. Then on the Raid would cover several routes in Leh including the 18,300 feet, Khardung-La, the highest motorable road in the world, pass through Kargil, Rangdum, Penzi-La and would conclude at Srinagar on 16th October.

The 13th edition of Raid de Himalayas will see 291 contestants as compared to 277 in 2010. the X-treme and Adventure category will compete on their own treacherous paths initially, but will meet at Rangdum (Rangdum is in a valley situated 3,657 m (11,998 ft) above the sea level, in an isolated region of the Suru valley in the Ladakh region in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in Northern India) and continue together via Penzi-La till the final stop at Srinagar, J&K.

Maruti Suzuki India announced yesterday that they have started the production of their hatchback, A-Star at its Manesar plant from yesterday. Maruti has been adding skilled and non skilled workers in their Manesar plant on a regular basis and have raised the output of Swift upto 700 Cars, have also resumed production of SX4 two days before and yesterday started the production of A-Star at its Manesar plant. "This takes the cumulative Swift production since August 31, 2011, to over 10,000 units," it added.

It seems that Maruti has decided not to get affected by its workers, we have also seen during earlier strikes that Maruti Suzuki India starts the production and does wait for the workers to agree or to further protest. However, Maruti is also holding regular talks with the workers of MSEU, the union at Manesar plant and also with MUKU, the union at its Gurgaon plant.

The company has so far dismissed 33 workers and suspended 29 on charges of sabotage and deliberate quality compromise. The deadlock between MSI management and workers of the Manesar plant has been continuing since August 29, when the company prevented them from entering the factory premises unless they signed a 'good conduct' bond, following alleged sabotage and deliberate compromise on the quality of cars being produced.

Workers at the plant, however, said the management took these steps to take "revenge" for their 13-day strike in June demanding the recognition of a new union -- MSEU -- at Manesar.

Wednesday, 28 September 2011

Buying a Diesel Car will now be more Costly in Delhi from tomorrow onwards, i.e. 29th September 2011.
Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit announced to hike the price of registration for Diesel vehicle while announcing the Budget in march 2011 as specified in Schediule I of Motor Vehicles Act 2004. The increase is accounted for levying additional tax on Diesel propelled vehicles.

The price of Vehicles will now be increased by Rs 6,000 for low priced Diesel vehicles while for high priced diesel vehicles, the hike would range from Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000. In all, the percentage increase in tax on Diesel Cars is 25 percent.

The diesel vehicles which earlier paid 4% will now pay 5%
The diesel vehicles which earlier paid 7% will now pay 8.75%
The diesel vehicles which earlier paid 10% will now pay 12.5%

On an average, 1200 to 1,400 cars are sold in delhi of which 30% are diesel.

Mahindra's event for unveiling the new XUV5OO was unfortunately delayed by 30 minutes due to rain, this comes as no surprise to us, because Mahindra has already mentioned, we will start the event at 07:30 IST(Indian Strechable time - LOL)

Now coming to the launch of the great car at a great event, the event finally started and everybody waited for unveiling of the car. However, Mahindra decided to initiate the event by a fashion show and was followed by a speech from Mr. Anand Mahindra who shared the emotional speech and shared the Mahindra Rise philosophy, the event was then taken over by Dr. Pawan Goenka.

Before unveiling the car, Dr. Goenka announced that he will give 20 F1 tickets to those who guess the exact price of the car, and the first one would be given a brand new Mahindra XUV5OO. But sadly, Dr. Goenka, said that the price of the car will be disclosed tomorrow. Now coming to unveiling of the car, the car was unveiled and three cars in different colors was available on stage.

The XUV5OO is available in both two and four-wheel drive versions with a 6-speed manual and automatic gearbox. It's powered by a 2.2-litre, common-rail diesel engine and the block is identical to the one found on the Scorpio mHawk. The XUV5OO also has some unique features such as a full touch integrated audio system, hill-descent control, airbags, ABS, ESP and blower controls for the third row.

However, if you missed the live coverage of the event, Team Wheelomania has captured the live coverage of the event for the convenience of its readers. So, what are you waiting for?

Fiat India is exploring opportunities beyond India. Fiat India told that India was strategically made as a manufacturing hub because of availability of cheap labour and other resources. Fiat India now looks to export its Sedan, Linea to Sri Lankan market. The exports to the Sri Lankan market will start from tomorrow.

The company has appointed Speed Italia as a official distributor for the Sri Lankan market. The first batch of cars to be exported to Sri Lanka will be 72 cars of which 50 cars is to be allocated to Sri Lanka Air Force Officials at the time of inauguration.

“The exports of the Linea to Sri Lanka (will) play a significant role in reaching out to the international markets and establishing our presence globally," Fiat India chief executive officer Rajeev Kapoor said. Exports of Linea to Sri Lanka are a step toward reaffirming the company's position as an international auto giant, he added.

The car market in Sri Lanka is approximately 20,000 vehicles and Fiat India aims to capture 5% of the country’s car market. Meanwhile, Fiat is also planning to capitalize on the export opportunities on countries like Bhutan and Australia, both of which are right hand drive countries, which would help Fiat India to directly export the vehicles to these countries without making much amendments in the current model.

The company has already commenced exports of its Linea sedan and Punto hatchback to South Africa and Nepal. So far, it has exported nearly 4,000 units.